What are the things that you greatly dislike about the current era of the WWE?

[Aztecwarrior480]

I'm no bandwagon jumper of the anti-PG era group but the things that I highly dislike about WWE in today's era is that they misuse and misbook a lot of talented wrestlers(Just look at Bray Wyatt and Dean Ambrose, they were often misbooked). They give a lot of really Blue wrestling gimmicks to talents, just to please the soccer moms and media outlets to be seen as "Kid friendly". For example, I think Daniel Bryan's a very skilled and talented wrestler but I dislike his stupid "Yes" gimmick which is one of the dumbest moves I think the WWE has done since Lance Storm's stupid party gimmick that killed his WWE career in the end.

They give little to no mic freedom to their wrestlers like they did back in the Attitude Era. They're so worried about their public image from the press these days that they feel that they have no choice but to become very politically correct of the segments and wrestling matches that they give us.

I'm not saying that the WWE needs to go back to the Attitude Era to be over-the-top edgy again to be great again but they need to at least give the wrestlers the freedom of mic speech to be naturally entertaining and not force scripted lines on them, book their new talents better, stop giving them these stupid "kid friendly" gimmicks, and not devalue the WWE World Heavyweight championship belt by constantly handing them to either part-timers who don't appear often or wrestlers who don't appear passionate and serious about the belt.

If there is only one thing that the WWE is doing right today, it's their NXT brand, which is more entertaining than the main shows yet ironically intended to be for rookie pro wrestlers competing and legends training them.

What do you guys think?

 

[Dolph'sZiggler]

Everyone feels the same. Similar attire. Similar characters. Similar move sets. Similar feuds driven by similar agendas.

Nobody feels unique or stands out. I can't watch the product any more because of this. Lesnar and HHH are the only guys who stand out on the roster. Everyone else feels like they are from some video games create-a-character.

Also the product is just boring. They have 3 hour Raws with a bunch of long TV matches that ultimately amount to nothing and move no stories anywhere. You couldn't pay me to watch Raw at this point.

 

[Stopspot]

Lack of midcard direction. Stop start pushes, lack of characters or the characters are scarily close to the New Generation stuff with occupations.

And RAW is too long. They put together a 3 hour TV show like it was still 2 hours

 

[Gliberty]

It definitely looks like creative/the writing team need to do some serious continuity work - we keep getting a random attack on someone with no real backstory to it, then it doesn't get followed up, or as Stopspot said someone gets what could be a great push and then just drops off the card for no reason or gets a few midcard random matchups against odd opponents. They don't seem great at judging audience moods either - they'll keep trying to push someone who just isn't going over well or keep trying to make a hero out of someone who could make a great heel given a chance.

 

[Aids Johnson]

reliability of wrestler builds,and mostly what D'z said. I am a huge Bray mark, was huge on DZ, ADR, etc and the build for these people needs to include a payoff that makes BOTH people look strong, which doesn't happen in 80% of the matches. A great example is Ziggler going over this past week, everyone is so quick to call him and jobber after we all hated him jobbing in 2014 and 2015. Too many rotating wheels, not enough build to keep me interested beyond drinking and skimming.

I haven't been interested in TNA in over a year now, so it might just be my interest/how often I drink solo and want to watch wrestling ffs.

 

[Swift]

John Cena


ipebomb:

 

[Jacob Fox]

Three hours of Raw is the main problem. I watched Smackdown recently and the show wasn't really better than Raw, but it was more enjoyable because it was a two hour shows.

You know, for years I was against the brand extension but now that it is gone, I kind of wish it was back. There was more opportunity for wrestlers to shine on different shows with different rosters etc. I dunno. I guess in a way it would be a pain to have it because there are so many wrestling promotions out now that it would just be exhausting to have to follow yet another roster.....

But the three hours of Raw is the worst thing they have. Also pushing someone strong and then making them hit a wall... like Bray Wyatt and definitely Kevin Owens. The same matches over and over and over with no difference.... meaning I can watch Okada vs Tanahashi over and over because they keep putting on excellent matches.... but watching Ziggler vs Owens 25 times when nothing new happens is just not fun.

And I know people like the New Day, but stop giving them 10 minutes of air time to just blah blah blah.... it's not entertaining to me.. I groan everytime I see these overexposed people.

 

[CM Punk]

Bland characters, shitty stages/set, terrible storylines, no real direction on where they even want to go and if they do, it turns out bad.

 

[Mr. Roman Empire]

Mainly lack of storylines for the entire roster. Raw used to flow together as one whole show with each segment flowing into the next smoothly. Now it's guys just having matches just to have matches to see who the better man is or who will win a title, but there's hardly any drama added on top of it to engage you in a storyline. Idc what anyone says, PG rating makes it lame. It makes it more geared towards kids but I rather see Sex and Violance. It just makes it more entertaining. Wrestling is already a wild sport and form of entertainment so adding more chaos to it works as long as it's not overdone of course. Oh and the announce team sucks. It's hard to watch something with Michael Cole screaming over every moment and Saxton being a tard about everything

 

[Rogue]

The reliance on only one key player. They only seem to have longterm booking plans for one top guy, and that hurts everyone else. You can just tell that they come up with plans for most of the roster weeks before the PPV, besides the main event which we all know what it will be before they announce it. People get injured, and sometimes they just don't work out. And when that happens fans shouldn't be saying "Well who's going to step up now? They have nobody they can just fit in there and make it believable."

Vince's lack of investment, which is kinda close to the first one. But this is dealing with call ups. Breeze, Neville, Owens, Dallas, etc etc.(AJ doesn't count although I'm sure the same will happen) all have some stories planned when they debut, but it is never seen through. Breeze/Ziggler was even, Breeze didn't go over in the end, same with Owens. He's had a couple of feuds, but the only one he came out on top of was against Ryback.

The lack of reliance they have on talent. The main reason the Attitude Era is held in such high regards is because the roster was able to be themselves. Bray and New Day are the only ones on the current roster that is given outlines, besides Heyman and Triple H probably. Ambrose has been given a little bit more freedom as well, but it's still pretty limited. Most of the others who even get mic time aren't able to show their true characters. And it shows, nobody feels natural.

Think the rest of my gripes have already been mentioned above.

 

[Green Jesus]

Matches don't matter.

I'm not sure if this is a current era problem, or a wwe problem, but I'm really tired of filler material. Winning and losing should matter, and storylines should result in something.

 

[RVD_86]

The three hour RAW like a few others have said is a big problem and the way they go about SmackDown now which is basically a highlight reel of RAW with a couple of filler poor to mediocre matches thrown in with no meaning.

The creative writing teams today are absolutely utterly hopeless. I mean they are so bad it's difficult to put into words. You see so many amateur mistakes nowadays from writing teams and really poorly thought out angles that you are left in a state of disbelief....and NOT in a good sense.

I definitely think the attitude era provided an astronomically better product than what we see today, but I am not against change and definitely not one of these fans that thinks we need to return to the attitude era style to recapture success. I think a lot more effort needs to go into scouting good talented wrestlers as the in ring performances you see from most of the roster these days is just bland and down right boring. We need more wrestlers who actually know how to wrestle. Guys like Y2J and Styles who have been showing everybody how to do it. We need new guys that have ability like your Eddie Guerrero's, Chris Benoit's, Dean Malenko's and Bret Hart's. These are all guys that could put on incredibly entertaining legendary matches without using steel chairs, ladders or tables, so I don't really know why guys like them are so hard to find nowadays. New age fans don't seem to understand that a great match is not John Cena vs Kevin Owens where both guys kick out each others finishers 10 times each before scoring a winning pinfall. That was a good one time thing that Taker and Michaels used in their Wrestlemania encounter which worked for them, but now guys in the roster try and copy that and think that makes a legendary match. Back to the drawing board I think!

The physical down sizing of wrestlers in general terms these days so as to try and steer away allegations and speculation of steroid abuse. I mean their are a few big guys around a the moment but nothing like what their used to be. There are too many smaller frame wrestlers being pushed too far these days to world "HEAVYWEIGHT" title picture, to the point where it looks stupid with the likes of Seth Rollins vs Brock Lesnar which would be just a total mis-match. Heavyweights need to be actual heavyweights in my opinion and there is not enough of them around just now, especially in the main event picture. I think more emphasis needs to be placed on building guys up, but naturally. Hollywood manage it with actors training for certain roles in movies. Tom Hardy is a perfect example. WWE could more than afford to do this and create some proper big guys so the heavyweight title picture is taken seriously again.

 

[Neptune]

I can make a HUGE list but I will stick with the basics...

Too predictable. Too many injuries. Too much lack on creative's part. Too many similarities with gimmicks and feuds. Tag and Divas belts still feel meaningless. TOO. LONG. OF. A. SHOW. Cut it back down to 2 hours. You have the flippin Network now, no reasons Raw should be 3 hours long.

 

[edge4ever]

Everything

 

[Neptune]

Everything